All posts tagged "event"

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Just a quick reminder that we're running a free phone give-away: there's an unlocked LG Quantum up for grabs. It's fast and easy to enter; all you need is a YouTube account. Check out this post for more details.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I have an AT&T-branded LG Quantum Windows Phone 7 to give away thanks to the generous people at LG, and I'm giving it away in a YouTube contest. You can check out the video above, but in order to enter the contest, you'll need to post your comment on the YouTube video page (along with subscribing to our YouTube channel and marking the video as a favourite). The phone is SIM-unlocked, but the contest is restricted to people in the USA and Canada. Apologies rest-of-world, but it's too expensive to ship things overseas. The winner will be randomly selected via Random.org when the number of entries reaches a minimum of 500 entries. Good luck to everyone who enters!

Monday, March 14, 2011

"DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! These FREE one day events build on the success of the previous DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Days. As before, it is all about developers learning, sharing and interacting with each other in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.

If you are creating apps for Windows Phone 7, as a professional, independent or student developer please join us at one – or all – of these free events, which are all about apps!!

Our goal is to get as many apps ready for Marketplace submission as possible, give you the opportunity to get one-on-one assistance from MVPs or Microsoft evangelists, help you overcome any development and Marketplace submission challenges, and to have some fun along the way. "

If you're a rookie developer, or a savvy coding coding guru, you're wanted at the DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper event on Saturday, March 26th.

Microsoft MVPs are expected to be in attendence to help you with any problems you may be having in your app. And there will be tutorials covering subjects such as Tombstoning, Databinding, Designing with Expression Blend, and more!

And did I mention that they'll be giving away prizes such as a Samsung Omnia Windows Phone 7 device, an Xbox with Kinect, and software licenses?

Click the link to find out more information and register. Hurry! Each event could only accomodate 50 people.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Our friends s over at Mobility Minded have made some changes to their website and to celebrate they've launched a contest and coordinated with Samsung Mobile USA to give a way a free Samsung Focus to new Twitter/Facebook fans of their site! If you've wanted to snag a new Samsung Focus or get one as a potential developer test machine here's the easy way to do it! Click here for the rules of the contestand good luck!!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Just a quick reminder that the giveaway contest for a Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z is ending in roughly three hours - this all-in-one desktop computer worth $1308 USD is a fast, capable computer that would be perfect for a variety of scenarios and locations - check out my full review here. Enter the contest now!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

I'm a couple days late getting this contest launched - things have been hectic - but here we go! I have a top-spec Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z to give away to one lucky Thoughts Media reader/YouTube viewer.

Here are the three things you have to do to be entered in this contest:

That's it! One entry per person, and the contest closes at 5 PM GMT -7 on December 13th, 2010. Good luck everyone - the winner will be chosen randomly from amongst all the comments posted. The winner will be contacted via YouTube direct message, and will have 48 hours to respond back to me to claim their prize. If the winner hasn't fulfilled all three of the requirements above, I'll pick someone else.

Please note: due to shipping constraints, this contest is open to people in North America only. You guys know I always try to do world-wide contests, but this is a physically BIG prize so as you can imagine shipping world-wide would be a bit problematic.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Hi everyone! I need your help to win an unboxing contest that Best Buy is running on Facebook, and it’s for a good cause. Since I do a lot of those, I thought hey, why not enter? There are two grand prizes of $2500 CAD each, awarded as Best Buy gift cards. Since we’re coming up on Christmas, sharing the grand prize if I win makes sense – so I’ve publicly committed to donating half of the prize ($1250) to kids involved with Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Canada. My mother works for that organization, and I’ve seen first hand the needs that some of these families have. She works with the in-school mentoring program, which pairs younger kids with senior citizen mentors. Apparently the kids are Nintendo Wii-crazy, and it’s an activity the seniors and kids can do together, so I think what I’ll do is buy as many Nintendo Wii bundles as I can with $1250 (it should be at least five of them).

I'd really appreciate the support of the Thoughts Media community, because - and I'll be blunt here - Twitter is such a noisy medium that every though yesterday the message about this contest went out to over 5000 people from three different people, nearly zero votes came as a result of it. I'm currently #3 in votes, but I could easily take a dominating lead if even 20% of you reading this decided to act. Please help!

Here’s how you can help me, and the kids, win – oh, and enter to win a $150 gift card yourself!

Log into Facebook, and visit the Best Buy Unboxing Day Contest Site. Click Allow when the app asks for your permission. I’ve noticed there’s a weird bug with Internet Explorer 8 where it loops the process for almost a minute, so you may want to use Firefox or Chrome if you run into trouble.

Find my Samsung Focus video (see above) and click on it, then click on Vote in the window that pops up. You’ll need to fill out a little form; if you live outside Canada and don't qualify for the gift card, just put in whatever bogus information you want.

Return to that contest site every day to vote – you can vote once every day up until December 31st.

The winners will be announced January 3rd, 2011, and if I win, I’ll announce it here and provide details and photos of the Wii’s I purchase.

(And for the Windows Phone Thoughts readers, I'll be doing a "real" unboxing of the Focus - that was just a simplified, quick version. I've got some serious concerns about the screen...).

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

"We've been saying it for weeks now: Microsoft will be launching Windows Phone 7 in New York City on October 11th and while others doubted, it looks to be confirmed by none other than Microsoft. What's even more odd, is that T-Mobile is the featured guest and we bet a certain HTC HD7 will be the star. Guess that rumor we heard about AT&T's exclusivity being only two-weeks may be accurate after all..."

The cat is out of the bag: Windows Phone 7 is officially getting launched on October 11th. And, I'll just come right out and say it, no one from Windows Phone Thoughts got invited to cover the event. Limited capacity at the event and all that jazz - sadly, we're just not considered important in the eyes of Microsoft. How times change...anyway, we've been added to the waiting list, but I don't expect we'll be able to cover it live. However, there will be a Webcast of the event and I'll be doing a write-up as I watch it.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

I'm not quite done with the Windows Phone Thoughts re-launch contest: next up is an AT&T Pantech C820 Matrix Pro (Check out my review here.). It's a Windows Mobile Standard smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1. I used one for a few months last year, and it's a surprisingly capable phone that's easy to use with the dual sliding input keyboards (the QWERTY keyboard and the 12-key dialling pad). It's locked to the AT&T network, so this contest is restricted to people living in the USA.

Want to win it? Just post a reply to this post telling me what your first mobile phone was - make, model, or whatever you can remember. That's it! I'll randomly select one winner on Thursday the 19th of August at 12 noon GMT -7. One post per person, and you'll want to make sure you have forum private message notifications turned on, because that's how I'll be notifying the winner. The winner will have 72 hours to get back to me to claim the prize.

I'm looking forward to reading about a lot of ancient cell phones - bonus points if you can post a link to an image of your first cell phone...

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Hey there Thoughts Media community! I was looking through an interesting discussion thread the other day, and I found myself realizing it was somewhat difficult to figure out who was saying what. Why? Because I'm a very visual person, and when I look at a discussion thread, I see avatars before I see the posting name. Back in the phpBB days, everyone had an avatar for their profile - but since we migrated to vBulletin a couple of years ago, it seems like adding an avatar to your profile is no longer the cool thing to do. Well, I say we make it cool again!

Here's all you have to do in order to be in the running to win a $50 gift card for Amazon.com: upload an avatar to your forum profile, and post a message as a response to this post telling me what you'd use the $50 gift card for. That's it - could you possibly imagine an easier contest? :-) If you don't want to upload a picture of yourself, there are many places to find avatars online (here, here, or here for starters). Keep them tasteful, respectful, and a maximum of 100 pixels by 100 pixels in size, and 19.5 KB or smaller. Non-animated GIFs and JPEGs are supported.

One comment per person, and I'll leave this contest open for a full week, closing it down on Thursday the 29th of July at 12pm GMT -7. Let's see those avatars!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

I'm giving away a Lenovo A70z worth $729 USD, courtesy of Lenovo. It's a great all-in-one desktop computer that I did an unboxing and first impressions video of, and you can win it in a random drawing. You'll be winning a brand new A70z, still in the box, not the one I used in the video. I'll be selecting a random comment posted on this YouTube video telling me why this A70z is better than the computer you currently have, or how you'd use the A70z as a secondary computer. To win, that person has to be subscribed to my YouTube channel and has to have marked the video as a favourite. I forgot to mention that you should also Like the video, so that's not part of the official rules - but doing so would be the nice thing to do. :-)

The contest starts today, and runs until midnight on the 12th (GMT -7) - I'll be randomly selecting the winner on the morning of the 13th. One entry per person, and the winner must be located in the USA or Canada. Don't forget too that this is part of a much bigger giveaway ($15,000+) so be sure to check out all the of the other sites that are giving away their own A70z's. Good luck everyone!

Monday, December 21, 2009

"Here are the Top 20 mobile apps as selected by our experts. You have 25 votes. Cast them as you wish. Put all 25 on one app. Spread them out. To find out more about an app, click on the app's name or image. To vote, click on the ‘VOTE' button below each app - one click equals one vote."

I'm involved as a judge in the Mobile Apps Showdown for CES 2010, and today the voting has kicked off, so click on through and cast your vote for your favourite application. Sadly, there are only a handful of applications unique to Windows Mobile, but the ones that are there are quite good. Voting is fast and simple - and requires no registration - so please go vote!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

That lovely video below is what I was seeing yesterday morning standing in my garage - as I write this it's gotten even worse. Winter has really arrived in full force where I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Blowing snow, roads being shut down, the whole deal. Since Windows Phone Thoughts and Digital Home Thoughts have a world-wide audience, I'm always interested in knowing what it's like where you live. And since I happen to have some now-legacy micro-lights branded with site names that no longer exist (Pocket PC Thoughts, Smartphone Thoughts, and Digital Media Thoughts) I thought there was a way I could clear up some inventory and have some fun at the same time...because who doesn't like cool little flashlights for free?

So here's the deal: I want you to post a picture of what the weather is like where you are right now. Bright sunny day? Cold and wet? Night time? It doesn't matter what it is, I want you to share your environment with the rest of the community - it's always fascinating to me to see the different sorts of things we experience. I have 25 Pocket PC Thoughts micro lights to give away, 15 Smartphone Thoughts micro lights, and 10 Digital Media Thoughts micro lights. That's 50 total prizes, and they'll be given to the first 50 people who post an image of the weather or environment they're in right now. BONUS: If someone posts a video, I'll also include a spare battery for the micro light (while supplies last - I have five extra batteries, so first come first serve). Read more...

Thursday, December 3, 2009

"We're all lost without our phones. So this holiday season, we're giving away three brand new Windows® phones from Verizon & AT&T for tweets that share your most embarrassing lost phone story. How creative can you be in under 140 characters?"

Running until December 10th, the "Lost Without My Phone" giveaway is simple to enter - just follow and send a tweet to @windowsphone explaining your most embarrassing lost phone story. Fitting that into 140 characters will be quite a challenge, but three Windows phones are on the line, so go for it!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

We've got another great contest for you, and this time because it's an accessory that works with so many different products, it's a network-wide contest. The prizes? I'm giving away three pairs of SHURE SE210 Earphones (MSRP $179.99 USD), courtesy of the generous folks at Shure. Our very own David Tucker reviewed this earphones back in September, and he loved them - so I'm sure the three winners will as well. The SE210's feature a noise-isolating sleeves that block 90 percent of the ambient noise, and the more noise you can block out, the more you can enjoy your tunes.

What do you have to do to win? Simply post a message in this discussion thread telling me which type of device (or devices) you'd use the headphones with. A Windows Mobile smartphone? A Zune? An iPod? An iPhone? A netbook or laptop? That's it - one post per person, and the contest closes on Tuesday the 15th of December at 12pm GMT -7. This contest is world-wide; I'll be shipping you the prizes myself.

Remember that all first posts in our system are held in moderation, so if this contest entry is your first post, please wait up to 48 hours before getting concerned if your post hasn't shown up yet - it will. Winners will be contacted via private forum message, so ensure that you have email notifications turned on. Winners will have 72 hours to claim their prize.

Let's see those entries!

UPDATE:The contest is now closed, and the three winners are GqSkrub, webguy248, and deenoo. Thanks to everyone for entering - it was great to see so many entries! And big thanks to SHURE for donating the prizes!

Friday, November 27, 2009

"You shouldn't have to stand in a long line to get a great deal. We're searching for the best Black Friday deals everywhere--including deals other stores are planning--so we can meet or beat their prices and bring them to you even earlier. These limited-supply offers will go quickly but we'll add new ones throughout the day, every day this week, so you can skip the long lines and still save a bundle."

Amazon.com has some great deals today (Fuji Finepix camera for $79 anyone?), so if you're going to do some online shopping at Amazon, do me a favour and use our affiliate link. It costs you nothing, but gives back a bit to the sites that you enjoy. Thanks! :-)

Monday, November 23, 2009

Just a quick note to say that my Mobius 2009 article has been updated with day two happenings, and some photos, so check it out - I think there are a few items in there that are conversation starters. I've also included my first take on the HTC Touch HD2.